Daily Archives: October 31, 2017

After Reconstruction was rolled back and Jim Crow segregation instituted in the South, a growing number of white Americans depicted the Civil War as a tragic family disagreement, rather than a battle over principle.In 1913, veterans from both sides gathered at Gettysburg for a “Great Reunion,” where President Woodrow Wilson gave an address that included no reference to slavery or secession. The era also saw a surge in the construction of Confederate monuments, including many outside the former Confederacy.Mr. Blight, the author of “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory,” said that Mr. Kelly’s remarks were themselves part of this “reconciliationist” tradition.“It reflects a very old set of ideas about the meaning of the Civil War,” Mr. Blight said. “Everybody was right, and nobody was wrong. Everybody was noble, everyone fought for their conscience, you don’t have to worry anymore about what they fought for.”“It takes all responsibility away,” he said. “That’s your compromise.”

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Records had shown multiple communications between suspected gunmen and an unnamed DESA official, according to GAIPE findings reported by Associated Press.An international outcry ensued after the murder of Caceres who with her movement Copinh led indigenous Lenca peoples in opposing the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam project.Construction was subsequently suspended when investors, including a Dutch bank and a Finnish fund, froze funding.

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EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt decreed that scientists who receive EPA funding for their research may no longer sit on key scientific advisory boards. This policy will freeze out many academic experts who rely on public grants to conduct independent studies. Pruitt also dismissed independent scientists from several important scientific bodies and replaced them with industry insiders.

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Not news – been this way forever – but good to see it reported again – justice is biased against POC.

White defendants generally get better plea deals than their black counterparts, and are more likely to avoid incarceration for low-level offenses, according to new research by Carlos Berdejó of Loyola Law School, who analyzed more than 48,000 cases occurring over a period of seven years.

According to Berdejó’s research into the plea bargaining stage of a case, white defendants are 25 percent more likely than black defendants to have their principal charge dropped or reduced to a lesser charge. Because of this, white defendants charged with felonies are less likely than black defendants to actually be convicted of a felony. Whites are 15 percent more likely than their black peers to receive a misdemeanor conviction, instead. Similarly, cases involving white defendants charged with misdemeanors are 75 percent more likely to end in no conviction, or a conviction for a crime that carries no jail time, than a black defendant accused of the same crime. Cases involving serious felonies result in similar outcomes for black and white defendants, but the disparities are more pronounced in misdemeanor and low-level felony cases, according to the study.

“The impact of a misdemeanor conviction on a defendant’s life should not be understated,” Berdejó writes. “Although certainly less serious and severe than felony convictions, misdemeanor convictions can carry major consequences for individuals…not only are black defendants originally charged with misdemeanors more likely to be convicted of a misdemeanor than white defendants, but conditional on a misdemeanor conviction these black

defendants are more likely to be punished by incarceration than white defendants.”

Controlling for other factors, outcomes are particularly affected by defendants’ criminal histories, Berdejó found. White people with no prior criminal history are more likely than black defendants with no criminal history to have their charges reduced, according to the study. The gap disappears for the most part when black and white defendants have prior convictions–both groups get similar treatment from prosecutors.

“These patterns in racial disparities suggest that prosecutors may be using race as a proxy for a defendant’s latent criminality and likelihood to recidivate,” Berdejó writes.

Although the study’s author is based in Los Angeles, at Loyola Law School, he chose to look at data in Wisconsin.

The state has one of the highest incarceration rates for black males, according to Berdejó. Data from 2010 shows that African Americans, who represented 7 percent of the state’s population, made up 43 percent of the prison population. Most of the disparity can be traced back to Milwaukee, where 50 of black males between the ages of 30 and 50 have spent time in state prison.

Berdejó says he chose Wisconsin, specifically, because the state’s courts’ data is “comprehensive,” he wrote. There’s a specific set of information regarding each crime, which allowed Berdejó to follow the trajectory of a case from initial charges to sentencing.

Local district attorneys’ offices make decisions regarding charges and plea bargains, and in Wisconsin and elsewhere, prosecutors have broad discretion in filing charges and in the plea bargaining process. It’s rare for a judge to reject a plea agreement, Berdejó writes.

The study looks at Wisconsin court data involving felonies and misdemeanors committed on or after January 1, 2000, that were adjudicated before December 31, 2006.

Berdejó says he narrowed down the data to look at Dane County, which includes the state capital, Madison, and is the second most populous after Milwaukee. The final dataset contains 48,368 cases from Dane County. Of those, 17,561 included a felony crime as part of the initial charges. The other 30,807 involved misdemeanors and lesser charges.

The Loyola researcher grouped the cases by charge severity, and controlled for certain characteristics of the crimes and defendants, as well as the identity of the prosecutors, quality of the defense attorney, and other factors.

“Efforts to mitigate racial disparities in sentencing and incarceration rates should take into account disparities in the plea-bargaining process and initial charging decisions,” Berdejó writes. “Proposals aimed at restricting prosecutorial discretion by increasing judicial discretion, for example via the elimination statutory minimum sentences, would seem to remedy these disparities.” Berdejó says his research also supports criminal justice experts’ calls for increased scrutiny of the misdemeanor process.

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Zuckerberg and company seem stuck in a cushy Silicon Valley mindset that assigns actual reality to the milk-and-cookies stereotypes that investors and advertisers are comfortable with. The monster they’ve created is being used for far more sinister purposes than what falls within purview of the company advertising parameters. Facebook remains flat-footed and clumsy in response to troll accounts that literally call for U.S. violence, and internationally, use of Facebook to cause real-life mass violence.There is a popular Silicon Valley notion that tech execs like Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and Sergey Brin are the best and brightest minds of our era. But if their platforms are being used in ways they didn’t anticipate and still can’t control, well, doesn’t that inherently make them not best and brightest minds of our era?

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Fascism is hard to kill and we must always be on our guard against Nazi’s, neo-Nazis, and allies. Stickers displaying Anne Frank wearing football jerseys have appeared in Germany as an anti-Semitic provocation by neo-Nazi fans. Dortmund and Leipzig ultra groups appear to be copying their Italian counterparts.

Mr Trump sought to dismiss George Papadopoulos, who has provided key evidence in the first criminal case connecting Mr Trump’s team to alleged intermediaries for Russia’s Government.”Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar. Check the DEMS!” Mr Trump tweeted.Mr Trump had called Mr Papadopoulos an “excellent guy” last March and tweeted a picture with him at a “national security meeting” in Washington.

Culture War is Class War disguised. The Wealthy Elite--the "Filthy Rich"--foment Culture War in society to distract and cover their real economic motives. Culture War, Class War explores the resulting cultural divide--how it was instigated and kept alive for fifty years in America by certain elite powers and how and why they choose to benefit while tearing families in two and keeping America paralyzed.